Tag: Chicago

I feel like it’s been too long since I took a moment to write a TILT. Too long. Last year even! To be honest, I started writing this last week, on January 1st, which also just happened to be a Thursday but got side tracked. But really, what better time to look back on 2014, and say, you were pretty decent, and I liked you? Better late than never? I suppose that’s been my policy for blogging in general. 2014 was a year of awesome travel, great experiences, and lots of plans & plots that are sure to carry through to 2015. The first few days of January 2014 were spent in the southern United States. We rang in the New Year in New Orleans. I never blogged about it, but what a beautiful way to ring in the New Year, off in the French Quarter, so many people from so many different places together. February 2014 is when one of my favourite fundraisers in Toronto happens – Recipe for change. I took a bunch of pictures and enjoyed the whole event greatly. I’m looking forward to it this year too. March 2014 was my first visit to Los Angeles, and when we attended the incredible ExpoWest, where natural and organic product makers, marketers, and retailers converge on to an expo building in Anaheim, California. Looking forward to this year’s expo as well. But what I really want… is to go back to this beach and run around in sandals in March.…

After spending the day walking around wicker park, JC and I had worked up an appetite. And after repeated recommendations, we had only one place on our mind – Quesadilla La Reyna del Sur, a vegan-friendly (lacto-ovo-vegetarian) Mexican restaurant in the Bucktown area of Chicago. We loved this place, and can finally understand the enthusiasm our Toronto vegan pals had when recommending this spot (thanks Amanda & KT). Everything on the menu is veganizable and everything we ordered was absolutely great. Service was lovely, and when we got the check we experienced this weird shock at why it wasn’t more expensive. We started with an order of chips and guacamole. Guacamole was fantastic, with cilantro and lime and a good quantity of salt. It was also much bigger than we had expected. This was the beginning of a trend at Quesadilla for us… portions were incredible value for the money. JC and I both ordered Platillo’s (plates) of Tacos, though for some reason I ordered the dinner with rice and beans. I expected much smaller portions, but three tacos/person were more than enough for us. JC had a plate of three tacos, and I don’t remember what he ordered but they looked (and tasted) great. Along with my rice and beans, I had three different tacos. I had asked the server which ones she liked the most because there were lots of “meats” I wasn’t familiar with. She recommended the Asada, Pastor, & Chorizo, so I went with it. And…

After a lovely day of exploring Chicago’s Magnificent Mile and a wonderful meal at The Lobby, we planned a more casual day of wandering around for our last full day in Chicago. First stop – Upton’s Breakroom for lunch and the Ukrainian Village & Wicker Park neighbourhood to look around. It was the first time we took a bus in Chicago. Those magic Ventra transit cards are pretty great (at least from a tourist perspective) – multiple forms of transit, one pass. There is probably a better way, especially considering how hot that day was, but it worked. We walked for about 15 minutes and just as we started to wonder if we’d missed it somewhere along the way, we saw the newly added Upton’s Breakroom signage, and wandered in. As you can see, there is a bus that conveniently stops right in front of Upton’s Breakroom. We didn’t take that one. Of course, we didn’t take that one. We ordered a whole bunch of delicious stuff, and as we ate, it became apparent that it was (at least unofficially) the breakroom of the attached Upton’s Factory as folks from inside came into the place for lunch or a snack or a break or a drink. I’ve eaten Upton’s Breakroom products stuff before in the early days – probably at their popup sandwich shop at Food Fight during the first Vida Vegan Con, but more recently we’ve sampled their prepackaged goods at Whole Foods locations in the North East/North Central USA…

As a special surprise for JC’s birthday I wanted to take him out for something he’s never done before, and after the camping and the driving, it seemed a nice fancy experience would be just the right thing as a treat. I emailed The Peninsula Hotel and The Lobby a few weeks ago about their vegan afternoon tea offering, and what would be on the menu if we went. They kindly sent over a PDF and asked if I wanted to make a reservation. I did! After a lovely day admiring the works at the Art Institute of Chicago, we made our way over through the Magnificent Mile, and on to The Lobby inside The Peninsula Hotel. It’s beautiful inside and service is semi-formal and friendly. It was nice that when I mentioned only being interested in the vegan menu when I made the reservation, because we got to skip the menu shuffle that has occasionally happened when we’ve gone to a restaurant that has a vegan menu, but who’s staff aren’t particularly enthusiastic about it. That didn’t happen here, and I can’t say that it would, because everyone was great. Save for five tables or so, we had The Lobby to ourselves, so I could actually take a picture of what the place looked like without taking pictures of strangers. Most people were in booths or by the window like us. We started with celebratory glasses of champagne, and enjoyed the view out the window as the staff prepared for dinner. Happy…

Oh where to begin. This was the day I planned out a little JC birthday celebration. I emailed with the staff at The Lobby in the Peninsula hotel before we left Toronto about their Afternoon Tea, and we planned to go to the Art Institute of Chicago for a very long wander and to visit the famous Chicago Bean (uh, I mean the Cloud Gate…) in Millennium Park. It’s also a perfect time to see a few other things in the area like the Magnificent Mile, DuSable Bridge, the Water Tower (one of the only remaining structures from the Great Chicago Fire of 1871), House of Blues, other things, and you can grab a bite to eat at Native Foods if you’re so inclined (we were.) I love learning more about the history of places we visit, and some of the architecture, so I considered taking a walking tour with the Chicago Architecture Foundation, but there wasn’t enough time, but if you’re planning a visit you might want to check them out. There is a list of the various walking tours here. They also have tours by boat and other methods of transportation. We whipped out our fancy 3-day pass loaded Ventra (transit) cards and took the pink line train to The Loop, which many other lines are conveniently connect to as well. To go to the Art Institute of Chicago (AIC) we got out at Adams/Wabash and walked up to the Beaux-Arts style building (a design familiar to some of us Canadian Prairie…

After enjoying a very lovely lunch at The Chicago Diner & enjoying a few cups of fancy coffee at Gaslight Coffee Roasters, we wandered around the Pilsen neighbourhood enjoying some of the street art Chicago is known for while we waited for our AirBnB apartment to be ready. As we travelled through the city I couldn’t help but feel like the city had a lot in common with Toronto in ways that other places I’ve travelled to do not. Little pockets of different cultures and neighbourhoods, a couple of major roads as main thoroughfares, street art, the general mid-sized-large city ambiance, etc. Home away from home. I collect pictures of street art wherever I can find it, because it’s so transient, and always changing and evolving. If you want to see anymore, please check out my Graffiti album on flickr. After getting into our AirBNB, we zipped over to a nearby Whole Foods in search of Earth Balance macaroni and cheese, and stumbled on Soul Vegan grab and go fare. We had considered going to Soul Vegetarian that night, but after a reasonably busy morning, we’d end up getting there just a bit too late for a relaxed meal. Until now, I didn’t actually realize that Soul Vegetarian and Soul Vegan are not the same folks though. So far JC and I have eaten at Souley Vegan (in Oakland), Soul Vegetarian (Jacksonville), Detroit Vegan Soul (Detroit), and now this one. I wonder what it’s like fresh, because most of…